Alleged jail-gang leader to be transferred

Tavon White, the alleged leader of a jailhouse gang at the Baltimore City Detention Center, will reportedly await trial in federal custody outside Maryland after his lawyer complained about conditions in the Cumberland prison in which he was being held.

White is accused of leading a smuggling operation at the city jail, and was charged last month in an indictment along with 13 female corrections officers. He is also said to have impregnated 4 of those officers.

There’s more bad news about the Baltimore corrections system: The Baltimore Sun reports on a federal study showing the Baltimore lockup has the nation’s second-highest rate of sexual contact between jail staff and inmates, trailing only the Marion County Jail Intake Facility, in Indiana.

The Sun reports that Lovisa Stannow, executive director of Just Detention International, an organization that campaigns against sexual abuse in detention, said the findings about the Baltimore center were “a sign that the jail is facing a major crisis.”